Tod Der Maschine
by Chiharu Octavia
Summary: Ed, Al. Slightly AU. Oneshot. Winry's automail is now on the other side of the Gate, and it wasn't meant to last forever. Slight angst, pain, illness.


Automail wasn't meant to last forever.

Even the great Winry Rockbell, Automail Genius, had known that automail, like all machines, eventually wore down. It had to be maintained, fixed, and usually, in the end, replaced. It had an estimable life, and she knew the number of years her creations would operate smoothly before having to be retired. Ed had been the only exception to her careful calculations, she'd told Al over and over again, laughing each time. With him, everything wore out faster.

Al wished she was here now.

He walked their tiny apartment, leaning over now and again with a soft grunt, scooping up a pair of slippers from the scarred wooden floor, green cotton pajama bottoms from the sofa. Ed tended to leave a trail of clothes whenever he decided to get up, which only partly annoyed Al. Most of the time it was convenient to know where he'd gone.

"Brother?"

Ed had told him a million times that they were too old to call each other that. Twenty-two and twenty-one was too old to be using silly childhood nicknames. People didn't do that in this world, his brother had explained. Just call me Ed, okay?

But Al couldn't. That wasn't who he was. It wasn't who Ed was, either. Not really.

He found a sock – just one – and picked that up, too, eyebrows raised. For Ed to get a sock off required real determination, and his brother usually paid for it.

Al hurried his steps, not that many were required to take him to the bedroom. "Brother, you shouldn't be – oh, Brother, stop it!"

Ed was on their down mattress, the fat one that had pretensions of being a queen-sized bed in a castle someplace. It was too big for their room, crowding out almost all other furniture, but it was stuffed with real goose feathers, and when Al had seen it being thrown out onto the street some years back during the war, he hadn't been able to resist dragging it home.

It wasn't stealing, really. Just borrowing. His brother had needed a comfortable place to rest, and if the Loehmanns ever came back for it, Al fully intended to return it with his thanks and the money he kept in the tea tin on the bookshelf.

"I'll help you, don't pull anymore!" Al dropped the clothes on the floor and ran over, grabbing Ed's left hand. The heat of it would have surprised him in days past, but now he was used to it. It was funny, the things that a person could get used to. The fever that was slowly eating his brother's body, the sour smell that drifted off of Ed's skin, the help Ed needed to do anything for himself, even use the bathroom – those were all normal, now. As was this fight about the clothes.

_"It's a natural part of the dying process, Alphonse," Doktor Weiss said. "People cannot bear to have anything on their bodies. They need to feel air on their skin. Perhaps you should get a fan –"_

Al had cut him off after that. Edward was not dying. Al wouldn't allow it, not after everything they'd been through to be together. Ten years in this God-forsaken country was not enough time.

He grit his teeth, needing to feel the hurt in his jaw. Stress had no place in a sickroom. "Here. Let me. Let go."

After such a grim thought, it felt like the wrong thing to say, but he couldn't think of anything else to coax his brother's fingers free. It worked, though; Ed relented, his left hand relaxing under Al's grip.

"How many times have I told you to call me if you needed something?"

"It's hot," Ed answered petulantly, slowly. His brow was furrowed as if speech required tremendous thought – and it probably did. The fever was high enough to confuse him sometimes.

Al nodded as he took hold of the pajamas. "You still should've called me."

He carefully worked the pajama top free, slipping it down Ed's automail arm and dropping it on the bed before turning back to the bandage. The gauze and tape wound around Ed's shoulder and under the metal brace that kept his automail in place, and Al sighed when he saw its condition. Crooked, bent, all bunched up…

"Brother, you can't keep doing this. I'm going to have to replace it again."

He opened the drawer of the night table, wondering for the hundredth time what Winry would say if she saw the assortment of tools he kept in there. She probably would've been delighted, actually; probably would've congratulated Al on finally coming round to her point of view. She would've grinned and socked him on the shoulder before hugging him, telling him something like, See that place there? In the port? I can fix that, silly, you should've called me sooner, but it's all right, I'll just charge you double!

A weak laugh trickled from between his lips, his heart constricting. He missed Winry. He missed having help –

"Al? What're you doing?"

Al snapped out of it, the drawer still in his hand. Ed would throw a fit if he realized that Al was going to take off the casing, and his tone said he knew Al was about to do exactly that.

"Nothing." A stupid lie, and a pointless one. It was too late. He'd gotten lost in his own pathetic self-pity, and now Ed was going to pitch a big one. "Just fixing the bandage."

Ed's eyes narrowed, and even through the fever they managed to retain the same sharp, golden glint that had pierced every fabrication Al had ever tried on his brother. "Don't take it off."

Al had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from cussing. Ed hated having the automail removed, hated it so much that he was willing to fight about it all day, scream at Al until his voice or his strength was gone and Al was in tears. It was the only thing, to his mind, that gave him independence. Without it, he was convinced he'd useless and a burden.

Al, however, liked it. It meant the horrid thing was off, away from Ed's body, and he could give his brother a rest.

He schooled himself to patience, voice calm and even. "You've screwed up the bandage, Brother. I have to fix it or you'll hurt yourself."

"Liar."

That still stung, even if it was true. Ed would never have called him that before – and he wouldn't have been one before. "I'm not lying. Look for yourself."

"It's fine."

"Brother!"

"Leave it alone, Al!"

"Look, Brother!" Al grabbed the bandage and pulled it the rest of the way free, suddenly not caring that it might sting or that the casing might be unbalanced by removing the padding that kept it off the port. "I didn't do this! You did it! You did it by not giving it up! You should've just gotten rid of it three years ag —"

Ed choked, eyes flying wide open with sudden pain, and his left fist shot out, nailing Al's face with the dull thud of meat against meat. A blinding heat shot through Al's skull and he stumbled back, tripping on the uneven floor and landing on his ass with a click of teeth.

His own breath was loud in his ears, watery and uneven with frustrated tears, and Ed's echoed it, both of them panting. Why? Why did it have to be like this? Hadn't they suffered enough? What was all this supposed to prove? "Brother…"

"Shut up."

Al did. He cupped his cheek with his right hand, trying to look anywhere but at Ed's bare shoulder… but it was like trying not to look at an automobile accident. Al's gaze was inexorably drawn to the thing that was the cause of all their pain, the one abnormal thing that had managed to become normal and yet was out of place again.

After days and days of this, one would think he'd get used to the sight, the smell, of Ed's automail port… but he didn't. It twisted his stomach to see the tight, swollen flesh crammed against the metal of the port like pink, shiny bread grown too large for the loaf pan. Pus seeped out of tiny cracks and pores in Ed's skin, crusted around the edge of the steel and filled the room with the stench of decaying things. The bandage hung limply from where it was still held by medical tape, the side that had been against the infection yellow and wet, thick with clumps of partly coagulated fluid.

But even as repulsive and pathetic as it was, all that was normal. It was the tiny red lines that had begun to thread themselves through the skin of Ed's shoulder that caught Al's attention.

He had seen them before, of course; saw them two days ago when Doktor Weiss had visited to clean the port and try to stem the infection, but they were longer, now. At least a few centimeters. "Brother, your arm –"

"Stop talking about my arm!"

Helpless, Al snapped, "Damn it, just look at it! I'm not going to touch it!" He threw his own hands up into the air to prove it. _See, Brother, please see! I'm not doing this to you! It's not me!_

Ed's glare showed what he thought about the melodramatic pose, but he did turn his head, gaze dropping to the angry flesh of his shoulder.

The silence spun out into the air, seconds filling with nothing, only Al's soft rustle of fabric as he slowly lowered his tired arms. He waited, praying for Ed to realize that the lines meant. It would do no good to tell Edward Elric anything; he had to learn it for himself. And if he didn't see for himself what those crimson streaks meant, didn't remind himself what Teacher Izumi had taught them, then he really was as good as dead, and Alphonse didn't know if there was anything he could do about it.

It was a long time, minutes and minutes, before Ed spoke. Al had held his breath four times before his brother's whisper finally broke the stillness. "…blood poisoning."

Al could've cried with relief.

He sagged where he sat, shoulders slumped, his whole body weak. "Yes, Brother. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Ed was quiet. He looked like a statue, or a pale, strange doll. He hadn't moved since he'd punched Al; his left hand still sat awkwardly in his lap. "… there's no-one left to fix it, is there?"

They both knew there wasn't, but it helped to say it out loud. Made it final. There was no Winry Rockbell, Automail Genius, in this world. There wasn't even their father. Hohenheim had made Ed's prosthetics when he'd been alive; Al had seen the bins full of arms and legs, had remembered being in awe, once again, at his father's brilliance. But Envy had killed their father, and now there was no-one.

"Nobody except… Doktor Weiss," Al answered softly.

"He doesn't know how this works."

"… no." Al pushed to his feet and moved closer, his shoes scraping the floor, until he could put a hand on Ed's head. The blonde hair was still strangely soft, if a bit dry; the illness had not taken everything out of Edward yet.

Al pulled his brother close, cradling the feverish, too-thin body as he bent to kiss Ed's scalp. "It'll be okay, Brother. I'm here. I'll take care of you."

"How long has it been like... like this?"

"You've been..." Al was glad his brother was able to talk to him, so amazingly happy that Ed could still think and reason that he almost didn't want to say anything. "... it's been bothering you for a while."

"… my leg, too?"

That hadn't been infected, though now it was too small and stiff to be anything more than a cane. Al nodded, sore cheek rubbing against his brother's hair. "For safety… yes. We should close the port… for safety. Just in case."

"But my arm…"

_Doktor Weiss shook his head and cleaned his glasses. "There's no other choice, Alphonse. I don't know who made this, or how you managed to keep Doktor Mengele from finding out about such a marvel, but the thing no longer functions. You're damn lucky he isn't in the camps. These lines, though… There is no other way. This metal sleeve, the 'port,' you call it, must be removed. I can do it… with help… but it must come off. I must amputate it."_

Al leaned over farther, gently pushing Ed back into the swaddling depths of the mattress. "You've made do with one before. You can still write."

"How will I walk?" Ed's left hand came up as his hair spread out over the sheets. He touched the rising bump on Al's cheek, and chagrin and fear flooded his face. "I hit you."

Al's voice was soothing, sweet. He kissed his brother's palm. It made him sick to think of what Ed was going to have to go through, but Ed alive with two limbs was better than Ed dead with four; Al knew that better than anyone except maybe Ed.

Maybe more than Ed.

His brother was so delicate in some ways. Ed had always thought of himself as the strong one, and maybe he had been, but to Al's mind, it was Ed who'd always needed something more to keep going. Something outside himself to show him that he was necessary and wanted and loved.

It was no different now than it had been when Al had been only armor.

"We'll figure it out. You didn't mean to hit me."

"I'm sorry. Al…" Ed stopped Al's lips with his finger, the pad rough and calloused. "You don't… you don't hate me again, do you?"

Al shook his head. "No, Brother. I've never hated you. I told you that. Remember?"

The answer was breathy, and Ed's right knee shifted against Al's thigh. His left hand floated away from Al's face and threaded itself in Al's ponytail. "… I remember."

"Good. I'll call Doktor Weiss in the morning." Al reached down and pushed Ed's legs into the bed, tugging the sheet up to cover them. "You'll see. It won't be that bad."

Ed made a small noise and tried a smile. "No. It won't be that bad. Because... because I have you."

Al nodded again, a small motion, and tried to imagine Ed without his arm. "Yes. You have me. Always."


End file.
